Bitter, Francesca Jakobi
Bitter, Francesca Jakobi
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Bitter
A novel to detonate the heart, gripping, moving and unforgettable

Author: Francesca Jakobi

Narrator: Charlotte Strevens

Unabridged: 8 hr 49 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 03/08/2018

Synopsis

It's 1969, the summer of love still lingers in London, but Gilda is haunted by her wartime past. She walked out on her son Reuben when he was just a boy and fears he'll never forgive her. When he marries a small, blonde gentile, she takes it as the ultimate rejection. Her cold, distant son seems transformed by love. What does his new wife have that she doesn't?

As Gilda's obsession builds, she starts to follow her daughter-in-law, copies her hairstyle and breaks into the newlyweds' home. Watching her son and his wife stumble through their first few months of marriage, she is forced to reflect on how she ended up so alone. And when new and shocking truths come to light, she has the opportunity to put the past to rest. She must decide between doing what is right and the tantalising prospect of revenge.

Read by Charlotte Strevens
(p) Orion Publishing Group 2018

About Francesca Jakobi

Francesca studied psychology at the University of Sussex, followed by a stint teaching English in Turkey and the Czech Republic. On returning to her native London she got a job as a reporter on a local paper and has worked in journalism ever since. She's currently a layout editor at the FINANCIAL TIMES. BITTER is her first novel.

Reviews

Goodreads review by 8stitches 9lives on May 21, 2018

Boy is this emotionally powerful... the last thing I had expected it to be. I've read a number of books where the story is that of obsession, there have been a few, even ones where the mother is obsessed with her son, just like this one. Of course, that is oversimplistic but that is the basis of it.......more

Goodreads review by Ronnie on March 05, 2018

Gilda Myer’s mistakes have haunted her for decades. They’ve stilted her choices and sculpted the relationship between herself and son Reuben into a poor imitation of what it once was. Now, as he marries his new bride, Alice, she sees a new side to her son. A man who is not withdrawn but glowing with......more

Goodreads review by Melanie on January 08, 2018

BITTER is an emotional minefield of a debut from a writer I expect we will all soon be hearing a lot more about. On the surface, this is the story of Gilda Meyer, a middle-aged train wreck waiting to happen in her newly-married son Ruben's life. The problem, it appears, is that Gilda is jealous of h......more

Goodreads review by Fiona on March 07, 2018

Gilda Meyer loves her son – it’s just she doesn’t know how to show him love. When Reuben marries Alice, who is the very antithesis of his mother, Gilda is consumed by jealousy, and her behaviour starts to unravel. It’s not easy to make a reader fall in love with a character who is as flawed as Gilda......more

Quotes

Bitter by Francesca Jakobi is stormingly good, deliciously addictive, as gripping as Zoë Heller's Notes on a Scandal. It's got to be the beach read of 2018!

BITTER is just wonderful. It's a very painful story but told with a kind of lightness and grace. It's so well-written, with such deceptive directness and simplicity, so well-organised and well-paced. Francesca Jakobi completely inhabits Gilda, in all her pain and obsession, all her self-deception and self-sabotage. An absolutely astonishing first novel

I bloody loved this book. It was emotionally so intense, so addictive, I tore through it, unable to stop. Buy it. Read it

Provocative and skilful . . . The results are as hilarious as they are unsettling as Jakobi exploits the stereotype of the needy Jewish mother and we are drawn against our better judgment to side with out-of-control Gilda GUARDIAN

Jakobi's debut is ambitious in scope, investigating her central character in forensic detail, with short, pacy chapters that alternate between past and present . . . At once tragic and engrossing, this gimlet-eyed character study elicits sympathy and damnation, both for Gilda herself and for the circumstances that have defined her' FINANCIAL TIMES

[A] riveting study of a woman who takes motherly concern to rather sinister extremes . . . it slowly, tantalisingly becomes clear that Gilda has never been in charge of her life . . . and shocking secrets from her past will have the power to transform her present Daily Mail

Brilliantly paced, moving, thoughtful and sharp. Loved it

Bitter, yes, but also sweet -- and moving, and searching, and quietly devastating: a novel to detonate the heart. Steep yourself in this exquisite story. You won't regret it, and you won't forget it. Fans of Gail Honeyman and Joanna Cannon will love Bitter A.J. Finn, author of THE WOMAN IN THE WINDOW

Gloriously sinister and yet, when you least expect it, quietly heartbreaking. Brilliant

I loved BITTER . . . an incredibly moving novel about a mother's guilt and shame at her inability to bond with her son. It is a beautifully woven tale that tilts with issues of class and race and religion. The reader's feelings towards the protagonist always balance somewhere between pity and indignation, never drifting towards any simplistic sense of certainty

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